One of Those Who Inspire Vicarious Adventure
If any problems arise (and they usually do!), I'll have to deal with them using tools & spares I'll carry onboard ...
Jeanne Socrates, aboard S/V Nereida, successfully completed a nonstop, single-handed, unassisted sail around the world at 2:26 a.m. on Monday 8th July 2013, when she passed Ogden Point at the entrance to Victoria Harbour, 259 days after leaving Victoria in October 2012.
She became the first woman to sail solo nonstop around the world from North America and the oldest woman to sail solo nonstop around the world (a record noted in the Guinness Book of Records)
The record was later claimed by Minoru Saito of Japan, who currently holds the record at age 71.
Socrates is preparing to attempt another circumnavigation, starting October 2016.
I expect to be at sea for around 7-8 months, hoping to get safely around the Five Great Capes of the Southern Ocean and back to my starting point without any outside help and without using my motor (which will be sealed).
I'll post daily blogs to my website and I'll be talking each day to people on land around the world using my HF radio, which I use for emails as well - so I shan't be quite alone!
If any problems arise (and they usually do!), I'll have to deal with them using tools & spares I'll carry onboard ... and all food for my time at sea will need to be with me from the start of my journey - fresh eggs turned daily should last several months, onions and potatoes most of the way, and I'll also have canned and dried foods.
Drinking water will come from a water-maker (desalinator) working off my batteries and I'll have long-life milk and fruit juices as ballast! My batteries will be mainly powered by the sun and the wind, with a small backup generator to help on windless, overcast days.
I'll do my own weather routing using my radio to get the information - 'grib' weather files will come as email attachments and weather faxes will come direct from onshore transmitters located beside whichever sea area I happen to be in.
It's useful to know when a storm is expected - they're very frequent over a good part of my route - and in planning my route I'll try to stay out of both calms and storms and in favourable wind as far as possible.
I'm hoping to use my sextant to practise navigation skills made rusty from frequent use of GPS. The Southern Ocean is often overcast so taking regular sights won't always be possible - but when well offshore, in the middle of an ocean, that's not a problem!
This will be my fourth solo circumnavigation and, I hope, my second successful nonstop one...
When I finish, I'll become the oldest person to have sailed around nonstop, solo, unassisted.
“The oldest person to solo circumnavigate nonstop should be a woman,” Jeanne Socrates said when asked why she wanted to do this all again.
Socrates will be 74 upon successful completion.